You say you understand me
And it feels nice
Because it's 4am and we're connecting
Because everything is exaggerated at 4am
When the masks come off and the room is dark and there are 5 other people asleep on the floor
When our whispers are raspy because we've been yelling for hours
And the glow of the xbox lights our faces, because we forgot to turn it off
And I tell you things that I've never told anyone
Not even the people I tell everything
The things I swore to myself I would keep secret forever
But it's 4am
And we prank called my crush and yours and everyone's exes
And we talked about dating and *** and we laughed until the parents had to yell at us
We ate pizza and chips and I felt like part of the group for the first time
Because maybe I was
Because you cared enough about me to poor your heart out and catch the contents of mine
But who knows if you meant it
Because it was 4am

I drop my pencil under a guy's chair and my friend convinces me to ask him for it back because "he's nice I promise" so I work up the courage to call his name as loud as I dare and I just start talking so I can tell him what happened before I lose my nerve, but halfway through I notice he's not listening at all and instead of asking for my pencil I ask him to ignore me. He does.
I met a boy and he was intriguing and clever and sarcastic and not unattractive and I thought he had potential but I waved in the hall and he didn't wave back and he didn't want to sit next to me in class.
I invite a boy I've known since 3rd grade to sit next to me in class, and he does, but then his friend shows up and there's a wistful look in his eyes. He doesn't talk to me, and he switches his seat the next day.
I sit at a crowded lunch table full of people I don't like because the people I do are outcasts. I don't have time to eat all my food.
I switch lunch tables to sit with my crush, by invitation of a friend. They ignore me to talk to each other. I try to join. I ask what's so funny. They shake their heads. He's sitting almost on top of me because the tables are so small but he never even turns to look at me.
Last year he sat with us and talked mostly to me and her table was having drama and fighting and now they all wear skirts to school and look pretty and my eyes are puffy and my legs have a light layer of fuzz which is easy to see because I'm still so pale.
I was the only person to sit alone on the first day of biology class and when I walked in the second day a girl who's never been particularly nice to me and wasn't in the class yesterday is there. She's excited to see me. She asks me to sit next to her. She looks at my paper while I write. I don't say anything because I don't want to sit alone anymore.
I'm stressed out by the second day. Unprepared.
718 more days.

so i guess i have to act normal around you
because you can't know you broke my heart
but what's normal?
because before, when i loved you, i wasn't normal
i was flirty and giggly and touching your hair
i was texting and smiling and laughing at all your jokes
and that's not normal
but maybe i still love you
because i still watch your lips when you talk
and that's not normal
but what is?

You said we were tag team *******
But you meant it as a compliment
And you pulled out your wallet the second I was hungry
We spent almost 9 hours in a Panera
But a movie would have been "too awkward"
I gave you gum and you said you loved me
But I made a joke and you said you hate me
And I can never tell which is more sarcastic
Pretending to date you was the best lunch of my life
But you laughed because it could never happen
And all our friends want to set us up
Even the ones who don't know how I feel
The ones who don't know I love you
Even if you don't love me

my friends used to joke and call me cynical
and i laughed
and i never understood why
but those people aren't my friends anymore
and i keep thinking that i pushed them away
but i also think that it was inevitable
that they would always realize the didn't like me all that much
because i was a bit too cynical for their taste

i'm close to a breakdown
but i'm holding back tears
because i'm supposed to be ok
and showing weakness isn't allowed
because telling you i just need space
is enough to get me to tomorrow
and pretending to sleep
gets me through the night

i'm close to a breakdown
but i'm holding back tears
because i don't want to smear my makeup
in case he comes to school later
because i've already been told it looks bad
why mess it up more
even though i pretended i didn't care
i pretend i never care

i'm close to a breakdown
but i'm holding back tears
because i'll cry later
when i'm alone and the door's locked
because i've had so many breakdowns
i've lost count of them
and i can't ask for your sympathy
when i don't have my own

a good way to cry is to read your old yearbooks alone at night
to see that in fifth grade your whole class signed their names
sixth grade was a competition to see who had the most inside jokes
in seventh grade your friends wrote you long notes and your crush took up a whole page
"you make coming to school every day actually enjoyable" and he signed it with love
in eighth grade most of the pages are blank
you got a hot boy to sign (twice) but your crush didn't have time until the promotion ceremony
he wrote that you forgot about him
he signed it with a dash and he added his last name
the only person who took up space in your eighth grade yearbook was your spanish teacher
who you promised to visit but never did
a boy you have known forever was moving away
you will never see him again but he had nothing to say about you
your oldest best friend told you she was saving her usual "novel" for senior year
but you don't plan on being friends by then
a good way to cry is to flip through the pages and count the people who you used to call your friends

we were so close,
on a night when the music could mean forever,
when the smoke burned our lungs and the sparks filled the air,
we were so close to something,
we ate and laughed and danced,
everything happened so fast, but
nothing
happened
at
all

i am so done with existing but i care so much and i hate when things aren't perfect
there are only like four people in the world that i like unconditionally
and even they can make me cry
this morning my dad yelled at me for seeming sad because i've been "so much better this year"
but he must be blind because i can't focus or find motivation and i feel like i'm slipping
past rock bottom and into the core of the earth where the heat and pressure are condensing me into molten liquid,
and then back into useless rock

5% thinking about dumb things i've said
5% wondering if anybody even likes me
5% obsessively checking my grades
5% worrying about money
10% realizing that i don't have any friends
10% stressing about work i have no motivation to do
30% thinking about him
30% planning a future i want but can't have

sometimes, when i'm lonely, i write my wedding vows

i've never been kissed
but i think if a guy asked me to i might go all the way
what do i have to lose?

in a school where nobody knows my name,
sometimes i'd rather be bullied
because it must be nice to be acknowledged
i'm not asking for prom queen

but somewhere out there, there has to be a boy
who writes wedding vows under the covers at night

he ignores you at lunch but he's at your locker after school and he offers you a ride home
when he's the only one who read your tweet he seems excited that he knows something special about you but he does not text you back
none of these are mixed signals because he doesn't care enough to think like that
but you read them like your favorite book, marking pages that are important because maybe there are clues,
foreshadowing of the love he hides deep in his heart but then he hugs her and he calls her because he's lonely
and you are by yourself again making too big of a deal out of friendship and trying to get over something you never had
you can't decide if he's an ******* or if it's you that's acting like one and maybe he's the nicest guy ever
you can't accept that some things don't work out because that would mean letting go
and you are afraid of what will happen when you stop holding on

I don't know why I'm looking at your picture again
when all it ever does is make me cry.
I don't know why I can't settle for being your friend.
But I have a tendency to die right after I beat my high
score, as if I can't handle being good enough, because
nothing else ever is.
I guess that's why, when everyone turned playdates into
dates, I turned birthdays into confessions.
I'll play truth or dare with strangers, but I'll always pick dare,
because how can I say my truths out loud when I can't even
whisper them to myself alone in the dark?
And why is it so easy for me to flirt with your friend when I've
loved you for years an I can't even look you in the eye?
Why can't I put a pen to paper without writing your name?
If love always hurts then why do I spend half my time feeling empty?
How can I be jealous of the friends you text back when you're
fighting with them?
And here I am, trying so hard to be a good friend to you that I forgot
about the people who were good friends to me.
Why is it so hard to write about my feelings when I know exactly what they are?

nothing hurts like being excluded by your crush,
or walking alone down the halls in a sea of friendships.
in a world full of ups and downs it seems you've been going down for too long
towards the bottom of the ocean, which is uncharted and vast,
without time for a breath of air because there is one hurdle after another.

and sometimes it seems like you use too many metaphors.
because the world is a scary place and saying your problems out loud make them seem real.
so why should you when you can compare them to a flower and be told you're creative and special?
that's all you want,
to be special.

so you wear combat boots with your dress and you throw an anti-homecoming so you can marathon 80's movies instead,
but you aren't special and nobody cares and you can't figure out the point but you eat up the compliments like you need them to survive.
because when your mom tells you that you look skinny it's the highest praise,
and if a friend says your hair looks nice maybe he'll be around to notice too.
but he's not,
or he doesn't.

and you spend another day holding back tears because you finally got your eyeliner right but you're so **** lonely,
and you pretend it doesn't hurt that when your broken phone finally turns on there are no unread messages,
because even though there are people who care you are still alone,
always alone,
and if happiness is for people who deserve it than you must have done something once.

or maybe it's 2am and you're up crying again,
and none of your poems get past being a jumble of words and phrases,
bits and pieces blurred by the tears that stream down your cheeks,
but write them anyway, because every now and then,
if you're lucky,
they dull the pain.

my father always keeps a hammock in the back of his car,
as if one day we will camp out under a million stars.
that's the kind of spontaneity i long for.
the closest i have gotten was confronting you this week,
and my only result was burned bridges.
i have never camped out under the stars, never gotten drunk, never kissed a stranger.
but i told you i was mad at you and i told you i did not care if you were mad at me too,
and now it is one am and i cannot breath and i feel like i am going to throw up because i cannot stop thinking about last year at this time.
i can't think of one thing that was the same.  i'm not even sure i'm still the same person.

some things sound so weird in past tense.

i am on a bus and i am sitting next to a girl i haven't sat next to in a very long time.
we used to listen to taylor swift and now we are listening to poetry that makes us cry.
i am so much happier than i have been because i am looking at art and i feel like maybe,
if i try hard enough,
i can become art.
the colors remind me of my old bedroom and they remind me of my old best friend.
she was in the hospital last month, because she overdosed.
i promised her once that we could talk about our end, but we never did.
i wonder if she ever thinks about me.
it is one am and it is raining and i am wishing that he would paint my portrait to keep in his pocket,
to immortalize in a frame that is prettier than i ever hope to be,
on a wall next to painstakingly created flowers that hold more emotion than i will ever feel.
the moon has a special hold on poets, but all it is doing tonight is making me wonder why my hands don't pull angels from stone and beauty from destruction.
i am wondering if i am still alive, if any of these people are still alive, and if the dead feel good about themselves.
i am wondering why i feel so different than i did last year.
maybe it's the dress and the notebook and the quiet steps i take because i don't want to disturb the art,
or staring long enough at a stranger that i can pretend to know his story, and that he wears his father's watch.

i am on the bus and she thinks i am less sad because she is less sad.
but when i look at all the art the first thing i feel is jealous, which is really the same thing as being sad.
i want to spend forever in the glass rooms but i don't deserve to, because i am so selfish.
i think that if i look at monet and picasso and van gough for long enough i will absorb them,
but i also want to walk past them, to the pieces whose plaques contain only a lifespan,
with no detailed description of the reasoning behind the use of numbers hidden in the abstract.
(picasso put them in so he could stay in touch with reality.)
i think that maybe that's why i am doing so much better in math this year.
i just want to stay in touch with reality.
because i have been staring at "evening mood" for half an hour and all i feel is sad,
because after the sunset there is nothing but darkness and that's what the night brings and it's what thoughts of you bring too.
it is called sandstorm but it makes me think only of the sea.
i think i need to get away from here for a while.  maybe i will go to the sea.

i haven't been on a bus in a long time, but here i am.
i spent the day as something i have always wanted to be.
we haven't talked in a month but she still thinks i am beautiful.
why am i crying?

my eyes are closed and my breathing is slow and from looking at me you would never know how broken i feel,
but i feel broken nonetheless.
i have been living as this storm for a long time now, and my hurricane walls are broken, but they're still up.
the winds tear me apart inside and push tears into my eyes, but i don't let them spill.  wind doesn't always bring rain.
sometimes it just howls, lonely and loud and cold, searching in the darkness for something unknown.
like me, searching for love, or peace, or companionship, or whatever it is that makes people happy.
what makes people happy?
i don't remember the last time i knew, because even when i'm smiling i'm a walking disaster.
i don't care about the people i care about and i don't like the things i love anymore.
i'm not a prodigy.  i'm not a hero.  i'm not a friend.  sometimes i think i'm barely even a person.
i'm just a storm, and if you keep your windows closed and you wish really hard, i'll blow over soon enough.

here's a shout out to the kids who can feel stress twisting their intestines.
to the ones who used to be smart and are now approaching the average line,
and who don't know how to deal with this.
to anyone who's cried in a school bathroom once,
twice,
three times a day,
and has never told anyone.
if you've ever stared at someone for so long they blurred around the edges but still looked perfect to you,
and they never looked back,
if you've ever stayed up until four am so you could go through the next day too tired to feel.
to the kids who hear sirens down the street and dream of the day they'll be coming for them,
but will be too late.
to anyone who has ever sat through a class full of people who want nothing to do with them,
anyone who has held their head up when they felt like falling to the floor,
anyone who has dreamed of epic adventure from the bedroom they are afraid to leave.
if you've lied to a therapist and your parents and everyone who has tried to make you feel better,
if you complain all the time but still keep things bottled up.
here's a shout out to us,
to the introverts and the depressed and the lonely,
to anyone who has survived one day and another and another,
and to everyone who keeps going,
no matter how badly we want to quit.

i feel it in the wind that rattles my window when i can't sleep,
it is always calling out to someone who won't respond.

in the snow that falls and falls and falls and falls,
a fresh start for everything but me.

i feel it in the cars that look like little bugs from my airplane window,
all of them filled with people who are moving and changing and growing.

i am moving too, much faster than them and much higher up,
but i feel like i am at a standstill, stuck in hole and letting time move without me.

on new years, at midnight, taking shots of cider and throwing confetti and wanting to cry,
when my friends aren't enough, when i all i want is to feel his lips on mine but i never can.

i feel it in my folder of school work that i haven't opened yet,
in the thought of going back to take tests and to walk down halls by myself.

i feel it in the three and a half more years before i am free.

in thinking about the future and how many more days they expect me to live through.
in the words i keep repeating in my poems and in the words i don't know how to write.

i feel it in endings and beginnings and in my stupid hope that this year has to be better than the last one.
in the pages of my yearbooks and the texts on my phone and in the mirror every morning.

i feel it in the bottom of my coffee cup and on the underside of my pillow,
in the blanket that holds me when i am afraid nobody ever will. (and they wonder why i love staying in bed.)

(mpr)

two years ago on april fools day we told everyone we were dating and they all believed us,
because that year you let me wear your scarves and we walked down the halls together and i went to see all your shows,
and everyone secretly wanted us to date anyway.

this year i did not talk to you at all on april fools day, and i didn't even see you.
i looked nice but you did not tell me and i was cold but you were not there,
but it's okay, because i'm over you.

april fools.

I've memorized your page in my yearbook. That's what happens when you stare at something all the time, and that's what happens when the guy you love writes that very word. Love. You wrote it so innocent, platonic. If only you knew how many times my lips have touched your ink.

So maybe it's not very pretty
Hiding a night of tears is hard
At least it'll stay on
Until I'm alone again

I wonder what I am doing wrong.
Maybe I'm not smart enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough.
Maybe I will never be talented enough, easy going enough, cool enough.
Or maybe I fell in love with the wrong person.

i am turning fifteen in a month and i have never done anything worth writing a poem about
i am awake night after night crying about the same words
about 'alone' and 'him' and 'high school' and 'the future'
but none of those things can keep a story going, none of them can form thoughts that make people feel things
there are so many words, and so many combinations of them that make me want to fall in love
real love, not this ******* lust that i feel for ideas of people that i make up in my head
i want to leave a legacy but i don't even know how to live a life that anyone would ever care about
i want to make art but i don't know what to do because i care so much about what people think
so i settle for staying up late and sleeping in late and staying home every weekend
i want to eat chinese food in front of the tv and climb to the roof and kiss a boy
i want to bury my toes in the sand and blast the music in a car and spend the night in someone's arms
but i don't know how and i'm scared and i'm not pretty or skinny or outgoing enough
it comes down to not being good enough or talented enough or strong enough
i've spent almost fifteen years not being good enough but everyone has told me to be myself
so i guess i'll spend another fifteen the same way

my tears spread my makeup down my cheeks and leave messages for me in a language i wish i didn't speak.
they tell me that i am not good enough, never good enough.
i have gone a long time without crying for him but all it takes is one photograph and i am a victim of loneliness again, and again, and again.
i learned how to cry silently to myself when he moved to town, because that was right about the time i started losing all my friends,
and now everyone that i talked to is gone and i have a new group to eat lunch with but it is different and i am different.
there are 7,216,737,659 people in the world at this moment and he is with two and i am with zero but i cannot stop thinking about one.
out of all the cities, why did he come to ours?  there are only a hundred kids in every grade and so he was guaranteed to make a splash but i didn't know he was cannon balling into my blood, i thought it was just a pool.
but that's what sharks do, they smell blood, and when he came i was so desperate to be loved that i would have bled myself dry for his attention.
it took me four months to start betraying my friends for him, five to start telling him their secrets and now after fourteen he won't make eye contact with me because i got so attached to the idea of having somebody that i got too close and i got blood on his favorite shoes.
so maybe he's not a vampire, but he really *****.
the only thing you can count on him for is his inability to show up for things that matter to you.  he will let you down time and time again like he is a ski lift that only goes one way and like the mechanic has been too busy to get around to fixing him,
and i will keep riding that lift because the hill is steep and i am probably not a good skier anyways.
when he lets me down on nights like these, i often wish i could just wipe my own memory.
i have seen stories of girls who swim in shark infested water, and they always lose something important, like an arm, or a leg.
i just hope i don't lose him.

missing you used to be an open wound.
every time i saw you, heard you, thought of you, it hurt.
i did everything i could to go back in time, and i tried to get your attention like you were the last band-aid in the box.
and now i am healing, scabbing, slowly.
it's itchy and uncomfortable and i avoided your eye contact in the halls five times today alone.
i have to work on not picking at my scab.
every time i think of you my fingers ache for the familiar movement, but i must not.
sometimes it still hurts, because you are still around and my skin has not grown back all the way.
i still bleed.
but scabs do not last forever, and i am healing,
even if you leave a scar.

people will forget.
people that are important to you will forget they were supposed to care.
people that made promises will forget to keep them.
do not cry.

when your family leaves you home alone all night, do not cry.
when you have two tests tomorrow and this week has been the most stressful one yet,
do not cry.

when the boy you love only hugs you by suggestion,
and barely notices you,
when you finally realize, after all this time, that you have no chance,
do not cry.

sometimes when your wind is crying out to its lost lover, your sky looks yellow.
sometimes it's pink, and sometimes it's so black i can't see the snow outside the tiny window i look out of every night when i wish on a star.
i guess i'm wondering why.
i'm sure there's a scientific reason, but i've been falling asleep a lot in science class lately.
i think that i like to think you're feeling the same things i feel when i'm around you.
the weird part is, i don't even know exactly what those feelings are.
i mean, i'm obviously not happy. it doesn't take meeting up with you to know that.
i guess i just have a lot going on sometimes.  you can understand that, right? everything important happens at 3am.
it just isn't fair that i don't know what's going on, in me or you.
this is less of a love letter than i expected it to be.
i think it's more of a goodbye.
i don't think i should see you anymore.
here's where the love comes in-
i can't stay away from you. when your sky is yellow i am watching, and when it's pink, and black. i am watching as you fade away to a 4am and a new feeling and a new color, and i am watching when you come back.
you hold me when nobody else will, and you are there for me every night, even if it's only for an hour.
that's more than i get from anyone else.
who cares if i always leave you with a bad taste in my mouth and a tear-stained face, or that you've never said anything to me at all?
just sat, surrounding me with silence.
at least you have never told me you don't love me too.

reading our texts, remembering that it takes you hours to text back
looking at your pictures, seeing how happy you are with every one else
reading my yearbooks and realizing that people change
wondering how i've changed
wondering why i don't change
considering telling you how i feel
considering telling her how i feel
considering deciding how i feel
thinking about how i feel
picturing us together
picturing us apart
picturing you
you
hoping that one day it'll be 3am and we'll be together

i am wanting to be done again and i cannot help but think of the time when i thought i really was
when i said i really was
when seven hours later i wimped out, alone on the bathroom floor, and nobody had said anything back
i think about when i try to tell someone how i feel and end up feeling worse
because sad is not as bad as
sad and alone and worried and obnoxious
or sad and tired and confused and conflicted
or sad and alone at two am crying again
or sad and alone at three with no more tears
only heaving sobs silent in the night because the last time i cried out loud my parents got mad
and their yells fill the hole in my heart that he left
because i can't live with or without him and watching him not need me fills my heart with a pain i never imagined i would feel
and now everyone can see that she is stealing him away not because she wants him but because she loves the thrill of the chase but she cannot see it herself and so it will not stop
i cried about him today and nobody was sympathetic because they are tired of watching me cry
if only they knew how tired i am
of crying

it's 5am
i haven't slept
and i'm questioning how much longer i want to live in this world
and the only thing that keeps me going is the thought of you
and pictures of you
and your signature in my yearbook
a whole page of nothing
but then two words
love
and your name

"because the media lives for-"
"******?"
"i was going to say controversy."

when a woman loves her body,
congratulate her.
when a woman is proud of her talent,
congratulate her.
when a woman embraces who she is,
congratulate her.

when someone tells a woman she is wrong,
scold them.
when someone rips off their clothes,
scold them.
whens someone throws clothes on their body,
scold them.

when a woman goes to the grocery store,
when she wears the same clothes twice,
gains weight,
loses weight,
when a woman has a child,
turn your head,
leave her alone.

pretend you don't see him walk past you in the hall
focus on someone else
laugh at their joke

don't try to find a seat with him at lunch
sit with other people
eat your food

you don't have to give him the homework every time he asks
ignore his text
tell him no

don't think about him when you're falling asleep at night
he is not thinking of you
do not cry

you make me feel dizzy, and not in a good, just off a roller coaster kind of way.
being with you feels like standing on the edge of a rooftop and begging myself to jump, like placing my already shaking finger on the trigger of a gun during an earthquake.
i never liked the high dive because i didn't like the pain when i hit the water, but you feel so much worse because i can't shake you off by swimming around a little.
i feel like i am at the bottom of the deep end, fifteen feet down and i can't get back up, the pressure is killing me and my goggles are pressing into my cheeks and i am no longer able to cry.
i haven't been in a pool in almost three years and i don't know if it's your fault or if it's just a coincidence that that's how long i've known you.

i've always pondered it
a little voice in the back of my head asking
wouldn't you rather be dead?
and my answer was always
probably

but i never really wanted it
until today
the little voice told me
it's time
and i said
*probably

everyone told me that people would change
we'd grow up and grow apart and grow away
but i didn't believe them because i know my friends
(i knew my friends)
we were so close and we were so inseparable
on the days when things ****** they were always there
and i grew up and now everything *****
and they grew up and now nobody's there

if i expected change i definitely did not expect this

i was warned that growing up does things to people
now i'm starring in a horror film watching my life dissolve
in the hallowed halls where everyone else is thriving

being invisible is an amazing superpower
except when it's an accident

sometimes you find a girl who is forever holding up a pearly light. she is forever golden but she looks forever sad.
maybe you are seeing your reflection in the glass and mistaking your face for hers.
there are goddesses of love whose arms have not been attached for a century,
and there are shimmering pieces made entirely of death.
i wonder if being made into art makes you feel less sad about being dead.
i think i would like that to happen to me.
stain glass with my blood and carve rings from my bone, string my hair into robes and paint lilies on my skin.
i want to be immortal, admired.
even if i end up tattered and frayed, covered in stains and held together by only a rope,
tell me i am art.
put me in your gallery on a pedestal and draw a line on the floor so that people cannot stand to close.
(i would push them away anyway. i always do.)
burn me, if you must, because fire is supposed to end things but it has created so many new colors.
put your hope into me. it does not matter that i can be erased because i am here right now, and we are feeling everything in capital letters and i have to be home at three so let's do something
turn me into something that a teenager who is pretending to be more whole than she is can find herself in,
for hours i want her to look at me and try to understand why i make her want to cry.
i always wanted to be that girl, and i feel like i am dressing up in her skin.
it does not fit, but the zipper is stuck.  it's too tight.  i can't breathe.
something is exploding.
i don't know if it's inside me or at the end of this road, and i have no choice but to keep going forward.
we'll see when the sun sets.
i will never see any of these people ever again.  they might stop existing tomorrow, and i wouldn't know.
i think i will miss them, just in case.
all of the things i will never tell you can be found between these walls.
i am sorry that i will never paint your portrait.
i still love you.

tonight, alone in my bed, the music cannot be loud enough
nowhere can be far enough away
i am overwhelmed with wanderlust and the desire to kiss someone
i want to live a movie
i want to fall in love-
with someone, not at them.
i want to drive down the streets blasting music because i know that the lyrics will change people the way they change me when i apply them to you
and there is a feeling that i get sometimes on nights like these
i want to jump off rooftops, not to die but to live
to fly away and away and sweep you off your stupid, amazing feet
i want to write songs about you and paint your picture on every wall in this ******* town
and for every wish i make i turn up the music a little more, and close my eyes for a little longer

I hate you loving you.
I can handle that.
I hate you, and your friends, and every word that comes out of your mouth.
I hate your hair and your hands and your laugh and your voice and your jokes.
That's fine.  I know these things, I'm okay with them, really.

I hate myself.
I hate the time I put into you, and I hate that you hugged me last tonight.
I don't know how to handle my racing heart and sweaty palms.
I don't know how to hide my tears from my parents when I lie to them and tell them you were super happy to see me.
I was a predator and I've turned into a parasite and I don't know what I'm supposed to tell my diary because I promised it you still cared about me somewhere deep inside, and I'm tired of breaking promises.

please don't tell me i can do it because i can't even meet my own expectations,
much less yours.
i want to scream from rooftops and i want to punch holes in walls,
my head is exploding and itching and burning,
but all i do is cry.
i am so useless.
stop
crying
please.
i am not my favorite song, i don't know about love and loss,
but yet the lyrics make me cry and i want to sing them forever,
paint them on my walls,
brand them onto my skin.
i feel so little and so empty and so sad all at the same time,
i don't care about anybody and i am so lonely that i don't even
care about myself.
i want to be with him and i want to go out on the weekend,
but all i do is cry.
rain makes the flowers grow but these tears just make my chest ache,
and my face red,
and my vision blurred.
stop
crying
please.
poetry used to come easy but now
the only words that come are the same every time.
i want to be successful and do well but i don't care
enough to make it happen because i don't deserve it.
what's the point of doing anything when it's going to end soon?
not soon enough,
but soon.
stop
crying
please.

it's fine, walk away
when you leave i still have her and when she leaves i can find someone else to cling to
but when it is late they are all gone
and i have no one
and that line keeps showing up in my poems but it's true
people don't understand how serious i am about how much i want to quit
i feel like there is a hole in my heart where all my friends used to be and it doesn't make sense because i'm trying harder than ever to keep them in my life
they keep telling me they still like me but the more i ask the more i feel them slipping away
and now they don't want to talk to me in the halls or hang out with me after school
my mom tells me i'm acting like i used to and i tell her i'm just tired
but anyone who reads my poems would know that tired is code for depressed, which is a word i will never use
today i cried alone in the bathroom at school but it was silent because i am so good at crying
i think it is the only thing i am good at anymore

i'm trying so hard
but you're better
smarter
thinner
more athletic
less clingy
and you can sing
and dance
and write
(writing was supposed to be my thing)
and my nothing cannot compare to your everything
because your beauty shines through
a ray of sun in the fog that is me
pulling him away
and he goes
happily

I want to tell you.
It's 2am and I want to call you and say "hey, *******. i love you."
but i'm a coward. so i scream into my pillow and wipe my tears.
because i'd been saying it all day
you just hadn't heard me

i don't think i've ever hit a lower bottom, and i don't think i've ever seemed happier on the outside.
i talked about dying twelve times today and i was only joking once.
i have gotten better at small talk and at burying myself in the screen of my phone but i have not gotten better at dealing with everything i keep inside.
i could fly across the world tonight and i don't think i would miss a single person,
but i am not leaving. they are.  and somehow it seems a lot less intriguing when i am the one stuck alone in this dumb little town.
i feel weird about it too.  guilty, even.
i have friends but i do not want to be their friend.  i want to be friends with flowers and paintbrushes, not with people who sing songs for little kids and yell about tv shows.
that is not me anymore.  to yell i would have to have passion, to care about something.
i don't.
i know that i am not a robot, because i honestly used to care.  but when people stopped caring about me i stopped caring about them, and now it wouldn't even matter if i was made of metal because nobody would notice.
my best friends all have new best friends.  on days when sitting at their lunch table doesn't give me a headache they ignore me anyway.
i am sailing by on a boat made of false smiles and fake texts, but i am sinking.
or maybe i have sunk, and everyone is looking at me through goggles and the water is distorting my laugh.  maybe that's why it sounds funny to me now.
maybe i sound funny to everyone else too.

on mornings like these i beg you
think back to my last birthday,
and how many candles were on my cake.
how you wrote on my card that I am a young lady now,
only not past midnight.

i'm not sure if i'm still jealous, or if i'm just overwhelmed with missing you every time you nod at me in passing.
2. my head is aching and i am shivering and i am thinking about when you used to let me wear your sweatshirt and scarf on cold days.  this winter has been colder than any of the winters i have known you for, and so have you.
3. you used to be mine in a way that was so hard to explain.  i wanted you to love me and i wanted to be your best friend.
4. i wanted you to tell people about me and i wanted you to tell me everything about you.
5. it is proven that second place hurts the most, and god how i am hurting watching her take first and watching her laugh at your jokes.
6. i remember every moment we spent together, so much that i think i scared you away with it all.
7. you are gone and i am stuck with all this stuff that i know, like your favorite musical and your brothers' stories and how you got your scar and how you feel about your mother.
8. your birthday will come again this summer and i will draft out a hundred texts, but i will not send them.
9. you're turning sixteen, and i am afraid the first place you'll drive will be to her.
10. i can't believe i'm losing you both to each other.
11. i had you first, and i am not good with jealousy at all.  i'm not good with loneliness either.
12. next time you see me, pretend not to notice how desperate i am for your love, and pretend you do not see the tears in my eyes when you walk away.
13. it really is the least you could do.